We start off the month in a fairly promising manner, as the first new release listed for sale is Dark Horse with the latest attempt to revive the old Magnus, Robot Fighter property. This would be the book about a man in a skirt who kicks robots to death.
I have a real hard time believing that Magnus didn’t raise at least a few eyebrows back in the 60s.

Dark Horse is also offering this iPhone skin featuring a nearly naked Tarzan:
I feel like there’s a Grindr joke in there somewhere…

I realize some of you are probably sick of hearing this by now, but this is the cover to Green Lantern‘s August issue:
Why is the male embodiment of love and lust covered head to toe? It’s not hard to find actual men’s clothing that makes the Star Sapphire outfit look tame, but I’m not sure if I should chalk up this outfit to Crotch Panic or just cluelessness.

Also, and this is straying from the topic slightly, IDW has a Dungeons & Dragons comic coming out that I wasn’t interested in until I noticed that it’s being written by John Rogers, of Blue Beetle and Leverage, so that gets a look. Though it still doesn’t make up for putting Orson Scott “the government must be overthrown if gay people get to marry” Card on their Dragon Age comic.

Here’s the variant cover for the latest attempt at a Namor series:
Even with what I’m sure will be very pretty art by Ariel Olivetti, I’m just not sure a bitchy queen running around in speedos has a large enough fanbase to support an ongoing for very long. Especially when this latest attempt is tied into the X-Men books and is part of yet another cross-over.

Okay, here’s the big one, Veronica #202, the introduction of Kevin Keller, the first openly gay character in Archie Comics (because what Dilton and Moose get up to behind closed doors is still a secret, and although Midge’s hair-cut isn’t fooling anyone, she’s still not out):
I’ve got strongly mixed feelings about this, and I’ve mostly avoided discussing the issue because I wanted to read it before I made a statement about it, and because I still feel pretty miffed at Archie sending Dan DeCarlo down the memory hole. On the one hand, I can honestly say that I never expected Archie to publish a comic with a gay character, not with the current management in place anyway. On the other, the hints of the plot that have trickled out make me nervous that Kevin is going to be less of a character in his own right and more of a plot device. The whole “girl tricked into hitting on gay guy” plot is pretty regressive, and problematic for a variety of reasons.
I guess we’ll find out in September how this ends up playing out.

Bluewater is publishing a bio-comic about Taylor Lautner, featuring his greatest assest: his abs.

Dynamite bring us The Last Phantom, featuring the title character nearly naked, bald and covered in some sort of sticky liquid.
The line between mainstream comics and fetish art is very thin sometimes.

Going off topic again, but NBM is bringing Peyo’s Smurfs comics back into print in English editions. A few volumes were available from Random House back in the 80s, and they really are fantastic…if filled with the sort of racial and sexual politics that make 60s Francophone comics a little uncomfortable today. There’s nothing particularly gay about them…except for Vanity Smurf…and Hefty Smurf…and Smurfette basically just being a Smurf in drag in her first appearance…and a village filled with 99 little men…
Okay, so Smurfs are pretty gay. Here’s hoping that all 27 volumes make it into English this time (and I wouldn’t mind seeing all their Johann and Peewit appearances showing up either…speaking of gay subtext…)

Titan Comics, publishers of the not-at-all-gay wrestling comics, is launching a Torchwood comic as well. From the solicitation, it sounds like it will be reprinting the comics from Torchwood Magazine, but I’d be willing to wager that more comic shops will pick this up than the magazine.

It’s been awhile since I saw something that really made me despair for the taste of straight men…how did I fail to guess that it would be a piece of Neon Genesis Evangelion merchandise?
As if the popularity of “bandaged Rei” figurines wasn’t creepy enough to start with, putting the character in an ass-flashing outfit takes it to a whole new level of needing to go and scrub my eyes with bleach.
Straight Men, what the hell is wrong with you?

Gayest Thing in Previews This Month
A Legend of Zelda statue depicting Goron leader Darunia.
Basically, an entire race of bears who spend their days wrestling each other.
Uh…huh.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 12:01 AM and is filed under Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.